Mefferd asked Harvey what advice she would give to the friends and family of a teen who wants to come out as gay. “The first thing,” Havey advised, is “they do not need to come out to everyone.”

“That’s the beginning of many troubling roads for young people,” Harvey said of coming out. That’s when they announce it and they feel like they have to live up to that, or down to that, standard they set for themselves. And it begins to label them, they put these labels on themselves.”

She added that parents and friends should tell gay teens that “lots and lots of people have changed out of this lifestyle.”